Millions of years ago, before complex thinking developed, early human ancestors relied on instinct to survive. Nonverbal and lacking abstract thought or advanced reasoning, they found food, reproduced, and raised offspring, often while enduring harsh conditions like cold winters. Their behaviors were shaped by instinct and a basic ability to adapt to their surroundings.
As humans evolved, our brains grew, enabling advanced reasoning and abstract thought. This transformation gave us the power to think, plan, adapt our environment, and collaborate more effectively.
Evolution doesn’t reset our genes with each new species; many traits from our early ancestors, including their instincts, remain deeply ingrained and largely unchanged in us today. While these instincts persist, they now coexist with our advanced reasoning, sometimes leading to internal conflicts.
Early ancestors like Sahelanthropus relied on instinctive and reflexive behaviors controlled by primitive brain regions, such as the brainstem and limbic system. As brains evolved, particularly the hippocampus and other memory-related structures, early hominins began forming implicit memories (e.g., recognizing safe food sources or avoiding predators). These learned behaviors could influence decisions without requiring conscious thought, laying the foundation for subconscious processes.
Instinctive responses guided behavior at a subconscious level, allowing actions without conscious deliberation. As brains grew more complex, early hominins developed the ability to subconsciously detect patterns in their environment, such as tracking prey or recognizing seasonal changes. This enabled more efficient decision-making without the need for conscious effort.
With the growth of the cerebral cortex, humans could direct their conscious awareness toward complex tasks like problem-solving and planning. To support this, simpler and repetitive tasks were managed by the subconscious, creating a division of cognitive labor that enhanced survival efficiency.
As self-awareness and abstract thinking evolved in later hominins like Homo sapiens, the subconscious became a repository for automatic processes, implicit biases, and instinctive reactions. These processes continue to subtly influence conscious thought and decision-making.
Like instincts, modern people often underestimate the significant role the unconscious plays in our lives. We learn behaviors and emotional responses to stimuli—sometimes for better, sometimes for worse—and many of these become automatic, operating outside of our conscious awareness.
If you’ve been driving for a few years, you’ve likely experienced the phenomenon of arriving somewhere only to realize you were lost in thought and hadn’t consciously focused on your driving for several minutes. Driving, in such cases, becomes an automated process.
How does the subconscious affect us when, as children, we learn unhealthy coping mechanisms and later forget that we learned them? These behaviors can feel like an intrinsic part of who we are, as if they’ve always been there. For example, consider a child who dreads school and feels stressed every day. When they come home, they might zone out by eating candy and watching cartoons. Could this child subconsciously associate stress relief with eating tasty foods and watching videos? As an adult, do they truly need this, or is it a forgotten learned behavior designed to soothe negative emotions? Over time, these patterns can become ingrained in the subconscious, influencing behavior without our awareness.
Before civilization, when humans lived in small tribes, adapting to the culture you were born into was likely effortless, for better or worse. These tightly knit groups operated within well-defined norms and survival strategies that shaped individual behaviors and values.
If your tribe practiced aggression toward others—raiding neighboring groups, killing their members, and forcibly integrating their women—you would probably accept this as normal. Survival was paramount, and cultural norms were seldom questioned. Such practices, while horrifying by today’s standards, were often seen as pragmatic responses to scarce resources, territorial disputes, or the need to ensure the tribe’s continuity.
Conversely, if you were born into a tribe that valued peace and collaboration, regularly sharing resources and fostering cooperative relationships with neighboring groups, you would likely embrace these customs without hesitation. This behavior, too, would feel natural, as it aligned with the tribe’s collective survival strategy and worldview.
Conversely, if you lived in a peaceful tribe and were met by a larger, aggressive tribe, surviving such an encounter could leave you distraught and lost. You might struggle to understand how this could happen, questioning the very principles of your culture and spiraling into an existential crisis. Similarly, if you were born into an aggressive tribe and encountered a larger, peaceful group that condemned your tribe’s behavior, you would likely face grave consequences, such as being killed, banished, or forced to reconcile with a worldview that invalidates your own.
In such scenarios, your aggressive tribe might band together to rationalize the encounter, dismissing the opposing group as weak, flawed, or undeserving in order to preserve unity and identity. However, if your tribe were integrated into the peaceful group’s norms, you might experience a similar existential crisis, feeling alienated and confused as you attempted to navigate a reality that conflicts with everything you once knew.
In modern times, we’ve seen similar psychological crises unfold in war. Think of the shell-shocked soldiers of World War I or veterans returning from war with PTSD. These individuals went to war with a worldview shaped by romanticized notions of honor and heroism, only to have it shattered by the brutal realities of modern conflict. The dissonance between their expectations and the horrifying truth left many struggling to reconcile their experiences with their previous beliefs.
For some, the trauma was compounded by witnessing or committing acts they never thought themselves capable of. Facing this darker side of their humanity often led to profound psychological breaks, as they grappled not only with the horrors of war but also with a fractured sense of self and morality.
World War I was particularly jarring because many soldiers still believed war to be noble and honorable. Some countries even rode into battle on horseback, wearing leather helmets, unaware that the age of mechanized warfare had dawned. Trench warfare, machine guns, tanks, and chemical weapons shattered these illusions. The abrupt shift from traditional warfare to industrialized slaughter left many psychologically unprepared, resulting in shell shock—a manifestation of the physical and emotional toll of the war, coupled with the collapse of long-held cultural narratives.
Life strives for equilibrium—both physically and cognitively. As humans evolved, the ability to plan and anticipate became critical for survival. This foresight allowed us to avoid immediate threats, such as predators, but it also brought a significant shift in how we perceived danger. No longer limited to what stood directly before us, the dangers we feared became distant ones—looming possibilities we could now foresee long before they materialized. While this advanced awareness helped us navigate complex environments, it also introduced emotional and psychological challenges.
When we are confident in our actions and direction, we experience a sense of security and well-being. The clarity of a plan, the certainty of a goal, or the stability of routine all contribute to our cognitive and emotional balance. However, when the path ahead is unclear, or when disaster seems inevitable, we are thrown into emotional turmoil. The resulting anxiety, indecision, or existential dread disrupts our equilibrium, leaving us feeling vulnerable and lost.
Modern people can understand this equilibrium by reflecting on a time they felt lost, sad, or hopeless. In those moments, your equilibrium was disrupted, leaving you emotionally unsettled. Most people have experienced such times and can recall the instant relief that comes when a single thought or realization suddenly resolves their perceived problem. That moment of clarity restores balance, providing immediate emotional reprieve and a renewed sense of direction.
Modern people are thrown into the world, shaped by influences that tell us what to think—our parents, schools, churches, social media, politicians, and the media. At the same time, each of us has a unique personality with distinct needs. Sometimes, these teachings align with who we are, and when they do, we feel a sense of resonance and accept them with little resistance.
However, when they don’t align, we experience discomfort—anxiety, a sense of being misunderstood, or unease. In some cases, we might accept these ideas intellectually, unaware that we subconsciously reject them. This disconnect between conscious agreement and subconscious resistance often leads to emotional distress, further severing us from our instincts and creating a deeper divide within ourselves.
All of this internal struggle further separates us from our instincts as we obsessively ruminate on these conflicts, causing us to live in our heads more than our bodies. We begin to perceive our instinctive drives as a malady rather than a signal. We think something is wrong with us instead of realizing there is a deeper part of us that sees who we could become. These strong emotions are not enemies but our instincts nonverbally nudging us toward our true path—one that leads to happiness and equilibrium. By listening to these signals, we can realign with our authentic selves and restore balance in our lives.
